Nikola Jokic went down with a non-contact injury as the Nuggets lost 123-147 to the Heat tonight. While fans were worried that the MVP candidate could be out for the season, several renowned doctors have now taken a look at the incident and seem to be on the same page about the potentially serious injury.
As the game approached halftime, the Serbian superstar went down while appearing to hold his knee before eventually being helped up. David J. Chao, a renowned sports injury analyst with 17+ years of experience in the NFL as a former head team doctor, took to social media and revealed his initial analysis of the incident.
“Nikola Jokic suffers a concerning knee injury… By video, expecting a hyperextension bone bruise. Will miss time (weeks) but hoping ACL is spared and not season-ending,” wrote Chao on X.
Another famous sports medicine doctor, Brian Sutterer, who also has over a decade of experience in dealing with sports injuries, remained optimistic about Jokic’s road to recovery from what initially seemed like a potentially season-ending injury. He made a video on YouTube and also took to social media to give his opinion on the incident.
“So, what we’re dealing with here for Jokic is a hyperextension of his left knee. Now, remember, a hyperextension is just a description of what you see in the limb. It can be the elbow, it can be the knee, it can be the hip, it can be a lot of different joints.”
“And what we then have to think about is what structures can be injured as a result of that hyperextension. This overall looks like a lower grade, a lower severity type of hyperextension here.”
He moved on to analyse the incident from multiple angles available initially before finally concluding that things may not be as bad as they seem.
“Overall, basically what I’m saying here from just looking at the footage is I don’t see an excessive amount of hyperextension, and I don’t see an excessive amount of valgus and varus, meaning inward or outward movement. The other good thing that I like to see is that nobody hit, like I said, directly on the knee, pushing it backwards, and he was not running while this was occurring.”
“Part of the force that is going to be transferred through the structures in the knee also comes from the ground reaction force. And if you are running, if your momentum is carrying you forward as you hyperextended, as we saw with Patrick Mahomes, there’s going to be more ground reaction force to come back up, more energy to be transferred from the joint from you running, and then this happens. So the fact that he’s basically stationary is a positive prognostic factor.”
Sutterer went on to list the potential injuries that Jokic could suffer as a result of the incident. The best-case scenario here is a bone bruise caused by the hyperextension, which he anticipates will cause a maximum week or two on the sidelines for Jokic to recover.
He then dove into the various tissues that Jokic could tear or injure due to this incident. The degree of damage to the oblique popliteal ligament could determine the length of the injury recovery timeline, varying from a few weeks to a few months.
But the worst-case scenario here for Jokic is a potential ACL or PCL tear. ACL tears are considered one of the worst injuries to happen to a basketball player and sometimes can take several months or even the entire season to recover.
“So overall, yes, remember that a knee hyperextension can absolutely cause something more serious like an ACL or a PCL tear. However, in this scenario, I think there are more positive prognostic things to look at than there are negative prognostic things.”
“We don’t see a severe amount of varus and valgus, meaning side to side. He was not running. He wasn’t jumping and landing because those are going to put more force through the joint. So, good that he wasn’t doing either of those.”
“We don’t see a direct impact on the knee itself. You’re seeing more down at the ankle. So, those are what I think are the positive things here. Yes, we could absolutely find out tomorrow that Jokic has an ACL tear. Absolutely possible. But I think with everything that we’re seeing, I’m more optimistic than I am pessimistic.”
Therefore, the best-case scenario here for the Nuggets could be going a week or two without Nikola Jokic due to a bone bruise. But the worst-case scenario is still a potential ACL injury that could see Jokic sidelined for the rest of the season. But all signs point to a diagnosis within this spectrum of potential injuries.
Having played just 19 minutes tonight, Jokic limped off the floor and did not return for the rest of the game. He finished with 21 points, five rebounds, and eight assists while shooting 9-of-14 from the field (64.3% from the field).
The Nuggets fell to 22-10 following this loss and can expect to enter the New Year without Jokic available to play for the first few weeks in January. It will be interesting to see how the Nuggets cope with the MVP candidate’s potentially extended absence.
